Murder Down Under (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 17) (10 page)

“Well, I guess that depends on who you are.”  She emphasized the last words, pointing out that he still hadn’t answered her question.

“Oh, right.  Sorry ‘bout that.  Name’s John Callahan.  I’m a reporter with the Lakeshore Times.  Was wondering if we could have a bit of a convo, you and me?”

“Uh, what about, Mister Callahan?”

“Seems you were a witness to a crime.  Roy Fittimer?  I hear tell he’s under arrest down at the police station, charged with distributing Ice.  The Australian Federal Police is even sending officers down to assist.  This is one banger of a story, Miss Sweet, and here you stand hip deep in the middle of it.”

Darcy rolled her eyes.  The last thing she wanted was to get her name in the paper.  This was her honeymoon, for Pete’s sake!

“Uh, Miss Sweet?” James called to her again, with another little knock.  “It’s right hard going, talking at ya through a door like this.  Can I come in?”

“I’m sorry, Mister Callahan,” she said quickly.  “I don’t have a comment for you.  I’m new here to town, after all.”

“Well, that’s deadset, I know.  Makes for a better story, don’t ya think?  Here’s this idiot running around the country selling drugs right under the noses of the cops and God Himself, and no one sees it until you and your fella blow into town.”

She had to admit that was true.  It seemed to be a pattern in this town with the police, as far as she could see.  “That’s not the only thing going on under the nose of the Lakeshore PD,” she muttered to herself.

A little too loudly.

“Er, what was that, now?”  There were muffled sounds as he leaned himself up against the door to hear her better.  “What else is going on, didya say?”

Fantastic, Darcy chided herself.  Now there would be a news reporter all over the story and she still had to figure out if what she had put together in her mind was right.  She didn’t want to make another leap of logic like she had with Roy, only to find out she might be accusing someone who was actually innocent next time.  She didn’t need the press poking around and stirring things up by turning over stones no one else was willing to look under…

Or did she?

“Mister Callahan,” she said, leaning closer to where she imagined his ear was pressed, “do you have a business card?  I’m, uh, indisposed right now but maybe I can talk with you later today?”

“Excellent!  How long’re you two here for?”

“A few more days,” she answered.

She listened to the sounds of him bending down to slide a small white rectangle under the door.  “Then I’ll be in touch.  Can I get yer mobile number?”

She really wished everyone would stop asking her that.  “I don’t have a cell phone.  Just call me here at the Inn.”

“Sure, okay.”  He sounded confused, but let it go.  “I’ll ring ya here.  Dell owes me a few favors, anyways.  Call ya tomorrow morning if I ain’t heard from ya by then, Mrs. Sweet.  See ya!”

Listening to his footsteps going down the hall, Darcy retrieved his card from the floor.  James Callahan.  Lakeshore Times.  There was a phone number, she thought, although it was a zero and a two in parentheses followed by eight numbers.  Must be the phone number.  She tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans, where she’d have it if she needed it later.

She was back on the bed, trying to read while thoughts of every sort ran amok in her mind, when Jon finally did come back.

“I’m really sorry, Darcy,” he apologized.  “I didn’t mean to be that long.  Chief… ah, I mean Senior Sergeant Cutter is probably the densest man I’ve ever met.  It was like talking to a stone, I swear to you.  I’d probably still be there trying to make him see reason if this reporter from the local paper hadn’t just shown up at the office pestering everyone with questions.”

Darcy melted into his embrace and let him hold her there.  “I think I met that same reporter not too long ago.”

“Really?  Tall, thin?  Blonde hair swept over in a kind of movie star sort of way?”

“I don’t know.  I only talked to him through a door.”

Amusement shone in his eyes.  “You have all the fun, don’t you?  Anyway, Cutter was more interested in getting his quotes in print than he was in listening to me.  Then some very serious looking detectives from the Australian Federal Police showed up.  That’s their version of the State Police or FBI, from what I gather.  It was all getting a little crowded for my liking.  So, I left.”

“Well, maybe I’ve got something that will help you change Cutter’s mind.”

Pulling away from him she went to the dresser where she’d put her little brown paper bag from Mrs. Havernathy’s.  She passed it to him, and he opened it with one eyebrow quirked.

“Jam?” he asked.

“Yes.  Jam.  Remember the little house that Roy pointed out to us where the nice old lady makes jam?”  She waited for him to nod.  “Well, I ended up there today and I was talking to her.  I think the people in this town are more worried about getting poisoned than the police are willing to let on.  Mrs. Havernathy knew exactly what I was asking about before I could even tell her.  She says she makes jams from some fruits that have very dangerous parts.”

He held the bag out further, as if it might infect him just by touching it.

“So, what are you thinking?” he asked her.  “The poison is in the jam?  Or that this Mrs. Havernathy is the killer?”

“I think we should give the jam to the Federal Police to be checked for poisons, yes,” she said, confidently.  A lot of things had clicked into place for her while she had waited for Jon to return.  Some things still didn’t add up, maybe, but she was sure about this part of it.  “They’ll want to test it, believe me.  Let me tell you why…”

Another knock on the door interrupted her.

Jon folded the top of the bag back over and set it down on the bed.  “You know, we sure are popular down here in Australia.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Darcy laughed, but truthfully she was getting really annoyed.  How were they supposed to have any time to themselves with a mystery this big on their hands and everyone in the whole country knocking on their door?

“Who is it?” Jon called out.

“It’s Kevin Powers, Mister Tinker.  Can I come in?”

They exchanged a quick look.  What was one of Cutter’s men doing here?  Why now?  Jon shrugged.  They weren’t going to find out unless they opened the door.

Kevin nodded his thanks after Jon had let him in, then stood there, looking at an imaginary spot on the wall.  His thumbs were hooked into his duty belt and he shrugged in his uniform shirt.  He chewed at the inside of his cheek.  Overall, he looked very uncomfortable.

“Was there something we could help you with?” Jon asked after another moment.

“Heh.  Seems you’ve being doing more than your share of the help already, Mister Tinker.”

“Look, Kevin, if this is going to be another heart to heart chat about how we should stay out of the way, I need to tell you—”

“No, nothing like that.  I’m not trying to pull the wool over ya eyes.  Promise.”  Whatever he was here to say, Darcy could tell it was hard for him to get it out.  “See, here’s the way of it.  I think the world of Senior Sergeant Cutter.  Gave me a go straight outta university.  He’s a hard man, I know, but he does his best.”

Jon folded his arms over his chest, and didn’t say anything to that.

“I know, I know.  He’s made a blue of this.  These four victims.  Three of them dead.  Forget what I said before about it not being suspicious.  That was the company line that we was supposed to give the townsfolk here in Lakeshore to keep them from going all panicky.  Truth of it, I know it’s murder.  That poor bloke Alec Beaudoin is in real danger, too.  Just nothing I can do about it without hard proof.  The Senior Sergeant ain’t gonna change his mind for nothing. He can be hard arsed sometimes, um… sorry,” he finished, with an embarrassed look at Darcy.

“Well.”  It was Jon who spoke.  “It looks like someone on your department has sense in his head.  Good on you, Constable.”

Kevin smirked at Jon’s badly pronounced Australian slang.  Darcy was just glad to hear they were making progress.  At last, someone was going to listen to them.  Of course, like he said, it didn’t do any good to have him believe there was a murderer still at large.  He’d have to convince the Senior Sergeant.  To do that, he needed real proof.

“I’ve got just the thing for you,” she told him, picking the paper bag up from the bed and handing it over.  “You should have the Federal Police send that to their lab and have it tested for known poisons.  Uh, they have a lab, right?”

“Ha.  Too right, they do.  Right fine set up.”  He looked in the bag, and his reaction was comically similar to what Jon’s had been.  “Miss Darcy, this is Jam.”

“Trust me,” Jon told him, “when she has her hunches, it’s best to just go with them.”

“We’ll need something from you, too,” Darcy added.  “Have you ever hiked the area around Lakeshore?”

“Beauty of a country out there,” he confirmed.  “I think everyone in Lakeshore has gone exploring Tasmania’s own Never Never.  Why?”

“Because,” she said.  “We’re going to need you to take us there.”

It was quite possibly the most beautiful place Darcy had ever seen.

Green plants covered the ground in every direction.  Small round bushes, tall plants with spiky leaves, coarse grass.  Hills rose and fell around them.  The trail that Kevin was leading them down wound its way between tall trees.  Mostly the same kind of straight, tall pines with their long branches that grew in and around the town of Lakeshore, but others as well.  Kevin pointed out black peppermint and white gum trees, a single blackwood tree and patches of what he called celery top pines.

Her camera was filling up quickly with picture after picture.  This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“Aren’t we supposed to be tracking down a killer?” Jon asked her.  “Instead of sightseeing?”

“Sure.”  She snapped a quick picture of him, with the spreading blue of the lake behind him through a gap in the trees.  She was going to get that one blown up to hang in the living room.  “Is there any reason why we can’t do both?”

Taking a deep, filling breath of the sweet smelling air, Jon took her hand and kept walking.  “It is gorgeous here, isn’t it?”

“The spot we want is right ahead,” Kevin told them.  He’d taken the time to change out of his uniform and into rugged jeans frayed at the knees.  His shirt was heavy cotton.  A little warm for the day, but better suited to walking through areas of spreading pine trees and their sharp needles.

Darcy wished she’d been that clever.  Her purple tank top was cute.  The scratches she was getting up and down her bare arms, not so much.  She was happy to know they were almost there.

Part of what Darcy had explained to Kevin and Jon was what Mrs. Havernathy had told her about where she got the fruit for her jams.  Some from regular suppliers.  Others, from wild patches of fruit.  Handpicked, here in the wild beauty of the Hartz Mountain National Park. 

It would have taken Darcy and Jon days, maybe weeks, to find the spots where that fruit grew.  A local guy like Kevin had led them right here.  Of course, ‘right here’ was a relative term.  After a quick lunch that Rosie had whipped up for them back at the Inn, they had started out on what Darcy had expected to be a quick trek.

It was an hour and a half later now.  She was sweaty, and her legs ached, and she had to keep swatting away little biting insects and the flies, they were the worst.  She caught Kevin grinning at her. “What?”

He just kept grinning and said, “Well Miss Darcy it seems you have it perfected.”

She still had no idea what he was grinning or talking about. Her confused expression and shoulder shrug must have given him a hint that he needed to explain. “The great Aussie salute,” was all he said. Darcy frowned and he lifted a hand and waved it in front of his face a couple of times shooing away a few flies that had landed on him. She finally got what he was talking about and grinned back at him.

True the flies were annoying but still, she wouldn’t have missed seeing this part of Australia, even if there wasn’t a mystery to solve.

Around a bend in the trail Kevin slowed them down and stepped off into the scrub brush like he knew exactly where he was going.  Which he probably did.  They followed, pushing tree branches out of their way.  Darcy kept looking down at her feet, expecting to see teeming wildlife scurry away with each step.

“Don’t worry,” Kevin said when he saw what she was doing.  “The tiger snakes are scared little buggers.  Like to slither off before ya even lay eyes on their scaly hides.”

“Thanks,” she muttered.  Boots.  Tall boots.  When she got back to Lakeshore that was the first thing she was going to buy.  “I feel so much better now.”

“No worries.  The bunyip’s the thing ya really need to watch out for. Oh, and the drop bear as well.”

“The…what now?”

Kevin laughed out loud.  “Tell ya about those critters later.  Look.”

He pointed to a patch of tall, flowering vines that were spreading everywhere near the edge of a clearing.  This wasn’t the established path but Darcy had the impression that people came through here a lot, from the way the grass was tamped down and the bushes were matted aside.  Easy enough to find, if you knew where to look.  She was even fairly confident she could find her way back here in a pinch.

The flowers on the vine were white blooms that were purple at their base with a yellow crown of stamens in the center.  Along the vines were clusters of fist-sized fruits, their skins green and yellow as they matured.

“Wow,” was Jon’s comment.  “Wait, the seasons are reversed here.  It’s fall… um, autumn, isn’t it?  How are these plants still giving fruit?”

Kevin went over to the vines and held some of the fruit out to inspect it.  “Yellow passion fruit grows into the winter months.  Things are different on this side of the world.”

He plucked two off with a practiced twist and a hard yank, then handed them over to Jon.  “Tasty things, too.  If ya get them fully ripe.  Don’t eat the young ones.”

Jon was obviously at a loss for what to do with the fruit.  Truthfully Darcy didn’t know how to eat passion fruit either.  They hadn’t come here to gather produce, though.  There was a reason Kevin was telling them to only eat the ripe fruits from the vine, and nothing else.

That was why they were here.

She walked past the men, past the laden vines with their heavy perfume that scented the air, to look out past the clearing.  The hill fell sharply away below them, into a hollow, and the ground quickly became rocky and barren.  White stone jutted out of the earth, and she could see roads leading away from the other side of the clearing.  Heavy machinery sat idle, waiting for someone to operate them.

Exactly what she’d expected to find.

“Shut down for the season last week,” Kevin explained, looking down at the site with her.  “Company’s out of Melbourne.  This is protected land, so they need government permission to operate.  They get a few weeks every summer.  Their time’s up.”

Yes, Darcy agreed as the final pieces fell into place.  Their time was definitely up.

“I think we’ll be able to wrap this up tonight,” she said, to herself as much as to them.  She loved Jon for indulging her to look into this mystery, for letting her be who she was, but they both deserved to spend some actual honeymoon time together.  Time to catch a killer.

“Wrap it tonight?” Kevin said skeptically.  “You must be real sure of your theory.”

“Aren’t you?”  After they had explained everything to him at the Inn, he had seemed skeptical.  Darcy wasn’t worried.  She was sure that coming out here would convince him they were right.  “It all fits.”

“Well,” he said with a shrug.  “I agree with everything ya said.  Just not sure it adds up the way ya think.”

“You’ll see,” Jon and Darcy said together.  They shared a secret smile.

Kevin watched them.  “I can see why you two make such a good team.”

Yes, Darcy thought.  They sure did.  “We should get back.  It’s a long walk.”

Kevin stretched his arms up over his head.  “Nah, just a stroll.  Felt good to get back out here.  Me and my girlfriend had a row of it a few months back.  Haven’t had any reason to come communing with nature since.”  He shrugged.  “There I go again, earbashing you two.  Gotta teach my mouth to stop running away with my brain.”

Darcy’s hand had found its way into Jon’s again.  It felt good to share all of this with him.  The beauty all around them, certainly, but the way they were solving the mystery together, too.  She felt a little guilty to act so in love in front of Kevin, knowing he’d just broken up with his girlfriend.  “I’m sure you’ll find someone again, Kevin,” she said.  “You’re a good man.  A good police officer, too.” She thought that maybe even Ellie Burlick might be that someone for Kevin. They seemed to have formed some sort of connection during all of this. Only time would tell she guessed.

“Ah, go on with ya,” he said, but she could tell he appreciated what she’d said.

They started back, once again following Kevin out to the trail, and then back toward town.  As they went Darcy noticed a commotion in the trees above them. A yellow and black parrot with a red band above its eyes sat there, watching them from a high branch as they passed.  Darcy waved at it with her fingers and then took a picture.

It hopped from tree to tree, following them as they walked, gliding past the open spaces to keep up.

“That’s a rosella,” Kevin said.  “Looks like ya made a friend, Darcy.”

The bird continued to follow them, and the world around them was simply amazing.  As pretty as it was, the knowledge they were heading back into town with was ugly, and it hung over them all.  Mrs. Havernathy and her jams.  Mabel at her bookstore with her belief in the occult.  Not to mention Dell Powers at the Inn, and how friendly she had been with Roy.

All of it came together into one single conclusion.

Darcy knew who the real killer was.

“Kevin, did you convince the Senior Sergeant to put a protective detail on Alec Beaudoin?”  Their last living victim.  Darcy wanted to be sure he was safe and sound in his home.

“Afraid not.”  Kevin shook his head, frowning.  “I had more luck with that Federal Police Detective.  He put two of his people on Beaudoin’s place.”

“Good,” Jon said.  “Then let’s go have a talk with the man.  He deserves to know we found where the poison came from.”

Darcy looked back over her shoulder.  The rosella was still following up there in the trees.

She waved goodbye to the bird, hoping she could come back to see more of the country very soon.

After they caught a killer.

***

“I still think we should tell Senior Sergeant Cutter first,” Kevin insisted, for the third or fourth time.  “Not gonna like being left outta the loop like this.”

“There’s a reason we aren’t telling your senior sergeant,” Jon reminded him.  “We talked about this.  Alec gets told first.  Then the Federal Police.  Then Cutter.  He can be in on the final arrest.  You’ll get credit, he’ll get credit, everybody wins.”

“Meh,” Kevin waved the comment away.  “Not looking for glory.  Just want a killer off my streets.”

Jon set his hand down on the other officer’s shoulder.  “That’s the mark of a true cop.  I’m glad Lakeshore has you here.”

They were driving over to Evangeline Circle in Kevin’s car.  Darcy was almost used to the steering wheel being on the wrong side.  Good thing she mostly used her bicycle to get around Misty Hollow.  She could only imagine that by the time they got back home it would feel strange to drive on the other side again.

“There’s the Federal cops,” Kevin said, pointing to the two officers in their white car with its one yellow stripe, sitting in the driveway of Alec’s house. Another officer was stationed outside of the front door, eyes darting all around.

From the backseat Jon leaned forward to look out through the windshield.  “They are really on the ball aren’t they?” Darcy could tell he was impressed by what he saw.

Kevin nodded.  “The Federal Police are some of the best trained officers in all of Australia.  Might want to get in with them myself someday.  Improve my lot.  Ya know what I mean?”

Darcy remembered the day that Jon had come to town, transferred in to the Misty Hollow Police Department from a bigger city, looking for something better.  Then came the day when he left again to transfer over to Oak Hollow for a promotion.  That had been hard on both of them, until he realized his mistake and came back to her.  What he wanted out of his career and his life couldn’t be found anywhere but Misty Hollow.  Now he was the chief.  He’d gone through a lot of changes to get where he was, though.

After a moment where he was probably thinking all of those same things, Jon nodded to Kevin.  “I understand what you mean.  Let me know if a letter of recommendation from an American police chief would help.  I’ll write you one in a heartbeat.”

“Thanks, Mate.”  Kevin said, parking on the street in front of Alec Beaudoin’s house.  “Might take ya up on that one.  Meantime, I’ll go over to these blokes and let them know you’re good to talk to Alec for a bit.”

“Thanks.  This won’t take long.  Come join us when you’re done.”

They got out of the car and went their separate ways.  The two officers in the driveway got out to meet them, in that way that police did when they suspected a threat.  They relaxed when Kevin showed the badge clipped to the waistline of his jeans.  While the three of them talked, Darcy and Jon went up to the front door and knocked. The officer guarding the door nodded slightly to them as he let them go through.

A grumbling Alec Beaudoin, thinning brown hair sticking up all over, face red and unshaven, met them with a glower.  At least he was dressed this time.  Darcy could be thankful for that, although his once white t-shirt was streaked with food stains from being used as a napkin.  “Oh, ripper,” he said.  “It’s the two blokes what got me put under house arrest.  Whad’ya want?”

“You aren’t under house arrest,” Jon explained.  “You’re free to come and go whenever you want.”

“Oh, sure.  I tried that.  Had me a police escort all the way to the pub.  Ruddy fantastic when yer out for a pint.  All me buddies split as soon as the coppers set up outside the Thirsty Roo.  So here I am, pleased as a greased guinea hen to see the two of ya again.  Now how ‘bout ya turn round and head off again?”